Stay in the Dark
by HardyGal
Summary: There's nothing in the dark. Absolutely nothing. It's freaky, and it sucks, but it's preferable to letting Megatron get his servos on that information contained within the memories that keep on replacing the darkness. Just keep running. It sucks, but staying in the dark means keeping Megatron in the dark. Right? (Takes place during TFP episode Inside Job)


The library was one of his favourite places in the Hall. When he wasn't in the outside courtyard, looking for any sign of what was going on beyond the Hall, he was inside the library, reading or studying some piece of lore or history. Or, occasionally, he would just be in the library to be in the library. It was quiet, but not in a bad way, and he could usually count on being alone in there. So, optics closed and servos clenched, Smokescreen just focused on steadying his venting.

There was a thought that kept on pulling at the back of his processor, asking why he was there, stating that something wasn't quite right, but he just had to ignore it. Chances were, he'd simply gotten into another argument with one of the perimeter guards and had finally lost his cool. The thought was strangely comforting, and Smokescreen let himself relax.

"The Hall of Records."

His vents hitched, and his optics snapped open.

"I do not think I have been here since Orion Pax still held his position as an archivist."

The voice echoed through the library, low, calm, yet shaking the Hall to its very foundations and rattling Smokescreen down to his protoform. His vents were beginning to pick up again, and Smokescreen turned every which way, searching every corner, every aisle, for the source of the thunderous voice.

"You're not supposed to be here!"

"I was not aware you knew anything about the Hall," the voice continued calmly, easily drowning out the echoes of Smokescreen's comparably more pathetic shout. "But no matter. There is only one thing you know that matters to me."

Smokescreen's doorwings stiffened. He spun around and looked up, optics widening. Standing there, much, _much_ larger than Smokescreen remembered, was Megatron.

"The identical relics. What are their function?"

"Frag off!" Smokescreen turned and ran, out through the library doors and into a landscape of inky blackness.

There was nothing out there. No light, no sound, nothing. He could see his servos as he ran. He could hear his swift pedesteps and sharp vents, but it all seemed muted, as though the landscape sought to swallow anything that brought some form of tangibility to it.

A short, scathing scoff filled Smokescreen's audial receptors. "Futile."

Megatron's voice wasn't muted. If anything, the massless, shapeless world of nothing only seemed to amplify Megatron's voice, accepting it as the only other tangible thing to be contained within and giving unwanted company to a solitary bot, running from nothing, through nothing, to nothing.

"Your thoughts are mine to uncover. Nothing you want hidden can be hidden from me."

That was a challenge. Smokescreen slowed down, turning back to shout defiantly into the darkness. "Try me, bucket-helm!"

"Shhhh!"

Smokescreen glanced at his fellow guard, doorwings dipping.

"Sorry," he muttered, then looked back into the locked hall, optics continuing to examine every relic.

As he studied a certain relic that looked like an oversized key, he asked, "Hey, d'you think I could maybe, y'know...?"

The other guard scoffed. "Kid, your job's to keep an optic on Alpha Trion. Unless _he_ decides to enter the relic hall, you're not going anywhere near this place. Which reminds me - why the slag aren't you at your post?"

"You were bodyguard to the master archivist."

Smokescreen turned sharply to see the massive form of Megatron standing right behind him. He stumbled back in alarm, and within the blink of an optic, he was back in the world of nothingness.

"Clearly you failed your duty," Megatron said, almost conversationally.

Smokescreen didn't have time to be offended or stung by the comment. He turned and continued running. Just focus on running, he thought to himself. Just running. Running through the blackness. Running to escape anymore memories–

Running up to another podium, where that large, key-like thing floated in its display field.

"And what's this one?" he asked eagerly.

"A secret," Alpha Trion replied with a small smile.

Smokescreen pulled back from the podium, not sure whether or not to be laughing, protesting, or disappointed. "Seriously?"

"There are many secrets contained within the Hall," Alpha Trion said calmly, walking along past his bodyguard. "This relic being one of them. Perhaps, someday, I will reveal these secrets to you."

"All right." He trotted after Alpha Trion and slowed to the old bot's pace. "...Maybe we could have, like, a secret revealing schedule of some kind?"

"These secrets must have been revealed to you."

Smokescreen stumbled and fell, back in the world of blackness. "What's happening?" he gasped, clutching his helm.

Heavy pedesteps approached from behind. "I told you, everything you know is mine to uncover, whether you try to run from it or not."

Smokescreen scrambled to his pedes and turned, back-stepping as he–

Spread his servo dramatically towards the next relic. "And this one's..." He paused, glancing at the key-shaped relic. "Actually, I still have no clue what this one is. Yet. Alpha Trion's still all hush-hush about it."

"So, he's doesn't trust you with everything."

Smokescreen's doorwings lowered a bit. "No- but _I_ trust him," he added quickly. "I'm sure he has a reason for hidin' some stuff. He'll tell me some time. I mean, Alpha Trion still _does_ trust me."

"I should hope so," his companion said with a small scoff. "You're doing something wrong if he doesn't."

Tour forgotten, Smokescreen finally asked what had been on his processor for awhile. "Why're you here, Prowl?"

"What do you mean–"

"Stop!" Smokescreen practically screamed into the darkness as the memory gave way to it, servos once again clasping the sides of his helm. "Get out of my head!"

A sigh filled Smokescreen's audial receptors. "Your attempts to fight, while still futile, are beginning to annoy me."

Smokescreen shook his helm and resumed his run through the darkness.

"Perhaps I should occupy you with something else."

That didn't sound good, but Smokescreen didn't slow his pace. He kept running–

Only for that rough servo to shove him back again. "Slaggit, kid, I said stay back!"

Smokescreen could still hear that one mech he could never remember the name of, screaming as though his legs had been blown off. Slag, maybe they had! Smokescreen didn't know, and it was freaking him out!

Ever adept at keeping his pedes, the adolescent sparkling kept trotting after the squad of frantic bots. "But isn't there anything I can do t' help–?"

"No, you can't do anything, slaggit!" the last bot in the procession snapped, glaring down at Smokescreen. "Now stay _back_!"

Another shove, and this time Smokescreen fell back onto his skidplate. Doorwings drooping, the adolescent sparkling watched as the bots disappeared down the hall. His spark was writhing in turbulent emotions, Smokescreen had to remind himself that "soldiers don't cry."

"Smokescreen." That was Prowl.

Fighting back the lubricant building up in his optics, Smokescreen got to his pedes and turned to look–

Out the window, optics wide as he watched one of the buildings at the farthest edge of Iacon collapse in a mass of smoke.

Another movement, much closer this time, caught his optic, and Smokescreen looked down to see one of the officers racing across the courtyard to where their commander was issuing orders to a few of the perimeter guards. The commander stopped as soon as the officer ran up to him. As he listened to the officer's report, the commander's faceplates became weary. He turned away, pinching the area between his optics. The remaining perimeter guards muttered to each other.

Optics still wide, Smokescreen looked back towards the far edge of the city. That building was gone, leaving only a pillar of smoke to distract from the otherwise serene cityscape that was Iacon.

All the turbulent emotions that had been building up in Smokescreen since he had received his assignment that that morning finally came out, and he slammed his servos against either side of the window frame with a yell–

But his voice was instantly lost in the stifling hum of the ship's engines.

This only angered Smokescreen more.

Again he pulled forcefully at his bonds, and again he was punished with a sharp pain in his shoulder joints and no give to the bonds whatsoever. Again he shouted his frustration into the halls, and again his voice was lost in the constant hum of the ship's engines. And then, just like that, Smokescreen deflated. He hung limply in his bonds, energy spent, frustration and anger vented, with only his unvented emotions for company.

What had he done wrong? He had been more than ready to fight the 'Cons when they'd attacked the Hall, and yet he was now their prisoner. And what about Alpha Trion? Primus, the mere thought of the old bot - whom Smokescreen had been ordered to _protect_ \- made Smokescreen's doorwings feel like they were curling in on themselves.

He had failed.

He had promised he would fight for the cause, he had been given orders, and he had failed.

Smokescreen's spark sank, and–

He looked at his servos helplessly. "I... I told Optimus I'd return with that key."

He could hear groundbridge popping up nearby, but Smokescreen was a little too lost in his own failure to pay any attention to it. In the midst of his dejection, Smokescreen could feel Bulkhead's heavy arm around his shoulders.

"Look, kid," the big bot said comfortingly. "Alpha Trion said we need all four keys–"

The world seemed to slow down. Alarm bells went off in Smokescreen's processor. Everything was a brief blur of colour and panic, and Smokescreen clasped both servos to his helm.

" _No_!"

In an instant, his cry was lost in the world of blackness. Except, the world seemed to have gained a little more life - Smokescreen was vaguely aware of many voices echoing around him, of his memories showing up as blurred images out of the corners of his optics, of the enormous form of Megatron perusing them like datapad entries. But he couldn't focus on any of that. Fighting the ache in his processor, Smokescreen stumbled forward.

Just keep running, he thought. If he just kept running...

He could see a door ahead. It looked like the door to the library.

Just keep running.

He quickened his pace, and within seconds, Smokescreen burst through the door, leaving the darkness, his memories, and the enormous warlord picking at them, behind.

He was standing in Prowl's old office. It wasn't the library, but it was enough for Smokescreen. Leaning both servos on the desk in front of him, Smokescreen closed his optics and focused on his venting.

"What was the message?"

Smokescreen opened his optics, doorwings perking up. Bulkhead? He turned, optics full of hope.

"It is paramount that we recover the final four Iacon relics."

And just like that, Smokescreen's doorwings dropped, along with his spark. That was Optimus's voice, coming from the other side of Prowl's office door, but...

"The Omega Keys."

Smokescreen's doorwings fell flat onto his backstruts. "Oh, no."

"Keys?" Arcee echoed questioningly.

"To what?" Ratchet asked.

"No!" Smokescreen burst through the office doors and found himself standing in the brightly lit Autobot base, watching as he and the rest of Team Prime looked up at their leader expectantly.

"To the regeneration of our home planet," Optimus declared.

That was it.

"No..."

Smokescreen felt as though the world had fallen out from underneath him.

"No..."

He stepped back from the scene, as though that would rewind and reset what had just happened.

"Oh, Primus..."

Heavy pedesteps shook the ground behind him. Smokescreen's servos clenched, and he turned on the giant form approaching from the shadows of the base.

"Now what?" Smokescreen snapped, quickly realizing he needed to control his vocalizer as it pitched slightly. "You're done, right? So get out of my head, and leave me alone!"

Still standing in the shadows, Megatron only released a thoughtful hum.

"Ugh, slag this!" Smokescreen punched a nearby wall.

All energy left his chassis, and he leaned quickly leaned against the wall he had just punched, processor a whirl of messy thoughts and spark a hotbed of writhing emotions.

He had failed.

He had tried. By Primus, he had tried. He had run, he had hid, he had tried to stay in the dark.

But he had failed.

What would the team say? What would Optimus say?

The thought sent a stab through Smokescreen's spark. Team Prime–

Gathered around their leader as he responded to Smokescreen's doubts.

"While I am unfamiliar with the lore of these Omega Keys," Optimus admitted. "Alpha Trion knew many secrets, and the Ancients possessed technology that has long been lost to what we consider 'modern science'–

"Whatever their function, this much is certain: we can not restore Cybertron without all four Omega Keys in our possession–

"The future of our home world depends on it."

 **A/N HardyGal: Oof, this was a hard one to write, but I'm glad I managed to finish!**

 **For awhile, I've been wanting to write what may have gone on while Megatron patched into Smokescreen's mind in episode Inside Job, but I kept on hitting creative blocks. It seriously didn't help that the way the Cortical Psychic Patch works internally is shown to be different pretty much every single time it's used in TFPrime.**

 **Now, literally years later, I started playing Uncharted 3. (For those who don't know, Smokescreen's voice actor also plays Nathan Drake, the main character of the Uncharted series). I haven't finished it yet, but so far it's got one of the trippiest scenes I've ever seen in the Uncharted series. The scene where Nate is drugged by Talbot especially stuck in my mind and did finally inspire me to write this oneshot.**

 **Hope you guys enjoyed this! :)**


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